Music Becomes Hot Election Issue For Victoria

Political candidates for the upcoming election in Victoria are falling over themselves to be associated with the music industry following Labor’s lead in pledging $22.2m in funding and a further $2m for music education.

At the Face The Music conference in Melbourne members of the Australian Greens, the Australian Sex Party, and the Liberal Party are now all attempting to follow Labor Shadow Minister For The Arts Martin Foley’s leadership and foresight for the music industry and jump on the music bandwagon.

The Liberal Party has pledged to fund $1m for Music Victoria’s regional music action plan to stimulate the regional touring circuit and provide $400,000 operational funding over the next four years. That figure falls well below Labor’s plans.

The Liberal Party promise comes after four years of slashing Arts funding for musicians, including removal of the separate and dedicated stream of funding for contemporary musicians and music initiatives.

Soundwave promoter AJ Maddah has called Victoria’s Premier Dan Andrews a “lying scumbag” over the public transport disaster set for the Soundwave Festival event in Melbourne next weekend in a series of provocative tweets.

Victoria’s music industry will be a major beneficiary after this weekend’s election win that was swept Dan Andrews to power as Premier of Victoria and will see Martin Foley installed as the Minister for Arts and Youth Affairs for the next four years.